Operant Learning Principles and Application Essay

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Introduction

Behavioral modification in human beings and so in children largely depends on one basic premise which is that most of the observable events are consequences of learning which can easily be predicted because naturally there is nothing that just happens. This implies that the behavior of a child is determined by conditioning and can therefore be modified in any way depending on the modifiers choice but how successful the modification will be largely depends on whether the modifiers has the proper skills to bring about the desired outcome. This paper will explain the design for the behavioral program to help the parent of Jane in addressing Jane’s behavior by demonstrating an understanding of operant learning principles and their application to the behavior problem. (Jackson, 2003 pp 24-31).

According to the scenario, Jane is a six year old girl who has just started Year One. She will not complete her homework tasks. Jane’s mother (Sarah) tries to keep an eye on Jane to ensure that she completes her homework. Sarah has Jane sit in the lounge room with her, while she watches her afternoon television programs. Jane is frequently walking away from her homework to watch the television. When Sarah tells Jane to return to her homework, she ignores her and continues to watch the television program. So she can watch the television programs, Jane’s mother completes her homework for her later in the evening. The behavioral program will comprise of three stages each of which will have various events as well as procedures. These stages will be; specification, making observation and immediate reinforcement which can be positive or negative depending on what is being rewarded. (Margolin, 2005 pp 35-39).

Specification

The parents need to specify the target behaviors, reinforcements and applicable contingencies starting with the target behaviors that need to be changed and this is to influence Jane not to be spending most of her time in the lounge room with her mother but rather engage more of her time in the study room until she completes her homework. Sarah should stop just focusing on the physical behavior of her daughter failing to complete the homework but also try to change Jane’s attitude which in this case is an internal change because even if the attitude cannot be directly observed if once Jane adopts a reading culture it will be possible for her mother to observe measurable changes in her. Sarah has already accomplished this stage because she has already defined the dependent variable which is the target behavior and once she starts the program for her daughter, she will be able to follow the specific set of steps and be able to identify when the behavior occurs. This marks the starting of the behavioral objectives which is to make Jane stop watching television with her mother but concentrate on the homework. (Stratton, 2006 14-19).

Sarah should adopt a gradual criterion known as ‘’think small’’ rule within her daughter’s capabilities to avoid frustrations on her part and also her daughter by setting small objectives like first accompanying her daughter to the study room and once this objective is achieved she can set up a more demanding target which is sending her to study room on her own. Sarah should therefore begin by first selecting an appropriate point to begin the change which should be the normal time for the afternoon studies and especially when Jane has brought home some homework. (Lovaas, 2004 pp 35-40).

The next specification that Sarah must carefully do is on reinforcement which can either be positive or negative to either encourage the desired behavior or discourage it respectively but which must be affordable and available to Sarah in terms of money and time as well as being available for Sarah to deliver. This must be among what Jane likes most like playing some computer games in the study room. The researchers have found small and immediate gifts especially if they are frequent to be more powerful compared with large and at the same time distanced reinforcement. Since Sarah may end up choosing a reinforcement that Jane does not like, it is recommended that she list the entire available reinforcement that she has and then let Jane specify which ones she would like to work for. However in her choice she does not have to make them physical like candy but she can as well use high-frequency behavior as reinforcement which are even better because the procedure in identifying good reinforcement through observation of baseline frequencies is always clear, simple as well as non-disruptive. Following this principle, Sarah would tell her daughter that if she does the low-frequency behavior which she does not seem to like, then she would let her (the daughter) have the high frequency behavior that she like doing a lot. In this case going to the study room is the low-frequency behavior while accompanying her mother to the lounging room and watching television together and thus failing to do the homework is the high frequency behavior. (Lucas, 2005 pp 23-29).

Observation

For Sarah to be able to deliver consequences at the right time when they would have effects that meets her behavioral objectives, she must observe carefully and she therefore require to state very clearly specific responses she will be observing. Observation will require use of time sampling which uses the approach of a fixed schedule or a varying time interval to follow up Jane’s trend. If Sarah decides on using fixed time interval then she need to be accompanying Jane into the study room and then leave her occasionally for a few minutes and then goes back and look around to see what she is doing and record all the key behaviors even if it is for half a minute and this can easily be facilitated by having a simple form for proper filling of each behavior every time she makes a visit to find out if Jane is developing some sense of independence on her studies. If Jane happens to learn about the time interval her mother is using to come back for the supervision making her mother to encounter difficulty in timing then Sarah should adopt a variable interval that varies from the expected time value by about ten minutes. However, time interval between one observation window and the other should be made short as this generates randomness within a desirable degree resulting to more accurate feedback even though this approach will be more disruptive for Sarah as it will require her to abandon most of her house chores to attend to Jane most of the time in the afternoon. When Jane learns to spend more time in the afternoon doing the homework with or without her mother then Sarah should increase the time interval for the observation because her objective is to see Jane adopt a reading culture even when she is alone for longer periods and for the rest of her school’s life.( Killeen, 2004 pp 34-37).

Reinforcement stage

At the start of the program, Sarah will require to accompany every desired behavior from Jane with a primary or a tangible secondary reinforcement. For example when Jane first accept to stay with her mother in the study room Sarah should be using terms like ‘’ very good, I like the way you know how to finish your home work early in the afternoon’’. This is a verbal positive reinforcement and should be administered immediately when both settle at the study table. A tangible secondary positive reinforcement would be for Sarah to put a plus mark by Jane’s name to serve as a motivation but Sarah has to first ensure that Jane understand the positive mark is a sign of appreciation. As a rule, conditioning becomes more effective if the reinforcing event follows desired response at a close range and the importance of this immediacy need increases with decrease of the intelligence level of the target person. Irrespective of the type of reinforcement that Sarah will use on Jane, she must observe the rule of consistency which means she must make accurate observations and resist to pressures towards delivering undeserved reinforcement or even withholding to deliver deserved consequences that are aversive because failure to observe and reinforce desirable behaviors would cause them to extinguish. If Sarah allows extremely disruptive behaviors go unpunished after she has already established punishment contingencies, this would reinforce Jane for ‘’testing the limits’’. (Travers, 2004 pp 29-30).

The best technique for Sarah in delivering reinforcement to Jane is to ensure that the reinforcements are motivating for Jane to study on her own and at the same time be the one that she can easily have control over them. One such recommended technique is incidental teaching which in this case will make use of Jane’s homework books. Sarah must make sure that Jane has a continued access to her books as well as proper behavioral interaction with the chosen stimulus and after sometime she can be able to cause a response deficit by sometimes withholding Jane’s books and by so doing an opportunity is created for both the mother and the daughter to interact. If this program is repeated regularly for a period between 3 to 6 moths, Jane will already have developed a reading culture and will no longer wait for being reminded or accompanied by her mother to do the assignment and will only be joining her mother to watch the television in the afternoon only after she has completed her homework. (Travers, 2004 pp 31-34).

Conclusion

Sarah’s behavior modification on her daughter Jane is based on assumption that her daughter’s problem was as a result of her present as well as her past experiences with environmental circumstances which led to the designing of the procedure that will modify Jane’s present environmental influences to promote reinforcement of desirable study behaviors and negative reinforcement of the unacceptable behavior of over relying on her mother in having her do the assignment for her. This follows that if Sarah succeeds in modifying Jane’s behavior positively, then the environment should be nourished with all those reinforcement rewarded until Jane is able to mange her time and homework without necessarily expecting any reward. If this objective is achieved then the reinforcements can gradually be removed and allow Jane to adopt the desirable behaviors regarding her studies naturally by use of her free choice to do the right study at the right time. Sarah should not misunderstand her daughter’s achievement in being independent on her studies as not deserving her assistance when she encounters a difficulty during his working on homework and therefore she should always be there if she needs her. (Kehoe, 2005 pp 12-19).

References

Jackson M. (2003): Organizational behavior management: Haworth press, pp 24-31.

Margolin G. (2005): Behavior exchange principles: Taylor and Francis group, pp 35-39.

Travers R. (2004): Essentials of learning: MacMillan publishing company, pp 29-34.

Lucas G. (2005): Behavior systems and learning: contemporary learning theories, pp 23-29.

Lovaas O. (2004): A behavior modification approach: Journal of autism and developmental disorders pp 35-40.

Stratton W. (2006): Teaching mothers through modeling to change their children’s behavior: Journal of pediatric psychology pp 14-19.

Killeen P. (2004): principles of reinforcement: Journal of experimental analysis of behavior, pp 34-37.

Kehoe E. (2005): A layered network model of associative learning: Psychological review pp 12-19.

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